Governor Bibb surprised the territorial legislature by proposing the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers (above), at the time an undeveloped wilderness, as the site of Alabama’s state capital. The site proved to be problematic as it was prone to flooding and occasional outbreaks of yellow fever. In 1825 Tuscaloosa was named as the new state capital. (Robin McDonald)

In the late summer of 1818, a special-ordered seal and press designed for use by the Alabama Territory’s executive office finally arrived in St. Stephens from Philadelphia. The emblem featured a map of the territory showcasing its famed river system, the future state’s literal arteries of commerce. On the surface it seemed a common symbol of unity, highlighting the natural abundance that drew Alabama’s people together and augured a bright future. Viewed another way, however, the seal could be understood to reveal the underlying reasons for the territory’s pervasive sectional and political rivalries that seemed to only grow more pronounced as economic activity increased.

Owing to the geography celebrated on the seal, the Alabama Territory’s primary population centers were oriented in two entirely different directions. In the explosively growing Tennessee River Valley, a host of newly founded settlements traced their economic lifeblood along the venerable river’s course to the Mississippi and, ultimately, to the port of New Orleans. Most of Alabama’s other budding communities, overwhelmingly located along the remainder of its river systems, tracked theirs down those streams to the port of Mobile. The second session of the Alabama Territory’s legislature poignantly revealed the fault lines of this festering sectional division.

Gathering again in rented quarters on November 2, 1818, the General Assembly hammered out a series of laws and agreements that both moved Alabama towards statehood and wrestled with some of its emergent hot button political issues. Earlier in the year, legislators had authorized the formation of a commission to find a centrally located, accessible site for a capital to which the admittedly paltry machinery of territorial government would be moved from St. Stephens once statehood was granted. Hoping to head off a debilitating power struggle between North Alabama (the Tennessee Valley) and South Alabama (the virtual remainder), after much deliberation, they decided to recommend Tuscaloosa. The humble village at the falls of the Black Warrior stood approximately equidistant from Alabama’s primary population centers.

The commissioners were preempted in sealing the deal, however, by the governor himself. During the interim between meetings of the legislature, Bibb had busied himself in maneuvering to establish a capital city further south at the junction of the Cahaba (often spelled Cahawba at the time) and Alabama Rivers, where he envisioned a great city. To do so he surreptitiously had tapped into connections in Washington to obtain sizable grants of federal land whose location he alone had the prerogative of choosing. In his address delivered to the legislature at the opening of its session, he revealed his scheme to the body. The legislature endorsed the proposal on November 21, but only after representatives from North Alabama obtained a concession that Huntsville would serve temporarily as the state capital until the planned city, which would be called Cahawba, could actually be built. They further hedged their bets against the grand endeavor of capital-making by including in the legislation a provision that only if Cahawba remained the capital in 1825 would it be declared permanent.

Governor Bibb surprised the territorial legislature by proposing the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba Rivers (above), at the time an undeveloped wilderness, as the site of Alabama’s state capital. The site proved to be problematic as it was prone to flooding and occasional outbreaks of yellow fever. In 1825 Tuscaloosa was named as the new state capital.

Another debate associated with the selection of a site for the seat of government revealed other simmering sectional tensions. While rapid development occurred in every corner of the territory open to American settlement, North Alabama specifically stood out. In the fall of 1818, Madison County alone laid claim to approximately a sixth of the entire territory’s population and accounted for about a quarter of all taxes paid into its treasury. Neighboring “Great Bend” Tennessee Valley counties also had sizeable and swiftly growing populations. Political leaders in the region naturally desired a proportionate share of power in the expected convention that would write the constitution for the new state once Congress enacted the required enabling legislation. To that end, they insisted that apportionment be determined solely on the basis of each county’s white population, with no limits placed on the number of representatives an individual county might have. Southern counties, meanwhile, wanted to place a cap on the size of county delegations and held out hope that some politically beneficial method of accounting for the larger proportion of slaves in its region might be reached. The northern counties carried the day on this issue once the legislature named Huntsville the temporary capital, and southern county leaders tabled their opposition subsequent to being assured the future, and allegedly permanent, state capital would lie in their section.

Had they cared to, close observers of the machinations by which the Alabama Territory lurched towards statehood in the fall of 1818 might have noticed much of it orchestrated by a small cadre of closely allied affiliates that historians now recognize as Alabama’s first political party. Alabama came of age in what historians often term the “Era of Good Feelings,” an interlude in American political history characterized by general rising prosperity, optimism, and a preoccupation with expansion rather than the partisan squabbles that characterized what came immediately before and after. While Alabama might have been a model of harmony and consensus on many fronts in its brief independent territorial days, it nevertheless contained serious political factions the most influential of which was a relatively wealthy and enterprising group of well-connected men who had moved to Alabama from Georgia’s Broad River region. Alternately known to their eventual detractors as the “Royal Party” or the “Georgia Faction,” this influential group of Alabama founders has also been dubbed the “Broad River Group” by noted historian of the era J. Mills Thornton III. The group included such notable movers and shakers as future governors Thomas and William Wyatt Bibb, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, and Sens. Charles Tait and John W. Walker. On one level they were the very epitome of aspiring Alabama immigrants, cognizant of the opportunity the land possessed and working assiduously to cultivate its benefits. But their unusually strong connections to Washington and positions as power brokers made them uniquely important. The group in many ways reigned over political life in the territory as if it were their virtual fiefdom, reserving as their prerogative the right to appoint themselves or their growing number of friends to virtually every significant office in the territorial and early state governments and orchestrating to a remarkable extent some of Alabama’s most important financial institutions. Despite all they had done to bring the state into existence, these erstwhile champions of the territory would surely be called into question if anything in their planning went wrong. As the second session of the territorial legislature closed, few could imagine just how soon that would happen.

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Mike Bunn currently serves as director of operations at Historic Blakeley State Park in Spanish Fort, Alabama. This department of Alabama Heritage magazine is sponsored by the Alabama Bicentennial Commission and the Alabama Tourism Department.